Working Class

How Racism Is An Essential Tool For Maintaining The Capitalist Order

June 26, 2020 Richard D. Wolff, Economy for All. Educate! Capitalism, KKK, Racism, Recession, Working Class

Capitalism’s cyclical crises could potentially turn their victims against it and make them receptive to the system’s critics. This would more likely happen if everyone in the society were roughly equally vulnerable to cyclical downturns. Most employees would then rightly worry that their jobs would be lost in the next crash. They would periodically face income losses, interrupted educations, lost homes, and so on. Whatever relief employees felt if neighbors, rather than themselves, got fired, they would know that it might well be their turn in the next cycle. The losses, insecurities, and anxieties produced by such a capitalism would long ago have turned employees against it and provoked transition to a different system. U.S. capitalism solved its instability problem by making cyclical downturns afflict chiefly a minority subpart of the whole working class.

CHOP And The Juneteenth Longshore Strike

June 25, 2020 Socialist Revolution. Strategize! Capitalism, General Strike, Rebellion2020, Working Class

On June 19, the International Longshore and Warehouse Workers Union (ILWU), a militant union of 42,000 members, shut down 29 ports along the West Coast of the United States and Canada, as workers withheld their labor for 8 hours. The strike was organized to demonstrate the labor movement’s solidarity with black lives after the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, and held on the Juneteenth anniversary of the emancipation of the last chattel slaves in the US in 1865. As part of the action, a mass demonstration marched through Oakland’s port and downtown, with several thousand in attendance. Boots Riley, a communist rapper and filmmaker, gave a militant speech to the crowd, emphasizing the critical importance of strikes in furthering the movement.

Glasgow’s Far-Right Violence Is A Warning To Anti-Fascists

June 20, 2020 Matt Kerr, Tribune Mag. Strategize! AntiFa, Fascists, Scotland, Working Class

Many of those who organised around the exemplary “no evictions” campaign over the last couple of years gathered to show solidarity and support for people with no vote, no opportunity to work, no money, and living in a new country having fled conditions which were often the stuff of nightmares. Sadly, this was met with a “counter-protest.” Quite how anyone could protest against people being given decent food to eat should be beyond comprehension – but for the far-right, this seemed too much like treating people from other places and races with dignity. Two sets of people faced-off. One set of working-class people who defended those who had nothing, who stood by the oppressed in the best traditions of the city – and another set defending the establishment, its grubby treatment of the most marginalised and its statues, including many of those in that square who would never have lifted a finger for the working-class in their lives.

What Next As The Whip Of Reaction Fails To Cow The Masses?

June 8, 2020 John Peterson and Jorge Martin, Marxist.com. Strategize! Police violence, presidential elections, Rebellion2020, Working Class

Over the last two years, more Americans were killed by police than Americans were killed in combat in Afghanistan over the last 18 years. ‬More Americans were killed by police in the last three years than people were killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks. ‪Combine this with a devastating economic crisis and pandemic, and it is easy to understand why a tipping point has been reached, as the accumulated rage and humiliation of centuries spills over onto the streets. Earlier this year, in the 2020 draft Perspectives for the Coming American Revolution, we wrote the following: “2008 profoundly transformed the consciousness of billions. The most serious strategists of capital understand and fear this. The Edelman Trust Barometer polled people in 28 major countries and found that 56% of the population believes that ‘capitalism today does more harm than good to the world’ – including 47% of Americans.

White Supremacy Is The Virus; Police Are The Vector

May 31, 2020 Nick Pemberton, Counterpunch. Strategize! Police, Ruling Class, System Change, Working Class

Tensions are high as Minneapolis police murdered a black man named George Floyd, not by gunshot, but by an agonizingly long kneel on his neck; which was not released for seven minutes, several of which the man was not breathing. Protest is a place to emerge into the collective and become unoriginal, to humble yourself in silence as others more aware with said experience lead the charge. However, writing should be the place for originality. A place where we solve the problems of theory that informs action. It is here where I would like to address a kind of Othering. This is not the Othering of making the minority docile and holy and martyred, but more so the Othering of whiteness and its discontents.

A Healthcare Worker Answers Governor Cuomo’s ‘Conundrum’

May 14, 2020 Mike Pappas, Left Voice. Educate! COVID-19, Essential worker, Pandemic, Working Class

In a recent press conference Governor Andrew Cuomo highlighted information from a new analysis of COVID-19 data finding a majority of the new patients being admitted were staying at home. Cuomo described the new data as a “surprise” to him as it was initially thought exposed frontline healthcare workers would be the brunt of new admissions. According to Cuomo discussing the new patient cases, “They’re not working, they’re not traveling, they’re predominantly downstate, predominantly minority, predominantly older, predominantly nonessential employees.” As Newsday reported, this gives the state “a conundrum” of how to stop the viral spread. “A conundrum,” you say? A surprise? For those of the working class, this new data is probably no surprise whatsoever...

Mass Unemployment Is A Failure Of Capitalism

May 12, 2020 Richard D. Wolff, Popular Resistance. Educate! Capitalism, Unemployment, Worker Rights and Jobs, Working Class

The difficulties caused to workers by record unemployment during the pandemic are a product of capitalism. Most of the time, employers decide to hire or fire workers depending on which choice maximizes employers’ profits. Profit, not the full employment of workers nor of means of production, is “the bottom line” of capitalism and thus of capitalists. That is how the system works. Capitalists are rewarded when their profits are high and punished when they are not. It’s nothing personal; it’s just business. Unemployment is a choice mostly made by employers. In many cases of unemployment, employers had the option not to fire employees. They could have kept all employed but reduced their hours or days or else rotated off-work times among employees. Employers can choose to retain idled employees on payrolls and suffer losses they hope will be temporary.

Reopening The Economy Will Send Us To Hell

May 6, 2020 Mike Davis, LA Progressive. Educate! COVID-19, Recession, Reopen Economy, Working Class

As we head into the fifth month of the outbreak, millions of working families feel like they have been kidnapped and sent to hell. As unemployment (officially reported) soars toward 30 percent or more, an estimated 20 million more people will fall helplessly below the poverty line. In a recent Pew poll, 60 percent of Latinos reported losing jobs or wages, as did more than half of all workers below the age of 30. In addition to their jobs, millions will lose everything they had spent their lives working for: homes, pensions, medical coverage, and savings accounts. Most of us have already lived through a brutal preview of economic collapse: the 2008-09 “Great Recession.” In a span of 18 months a majority of Black and Latino families lost all their net wealth and college grads from non-privileged backgrounds found themselves marooned, seemingly for life, in the low-wage service economy.

Indian State Shows Why Fighting COVID-19 Requires Working-Class Power

May 5, 2020 Samantha Argawal, Truthout. Create! COVID-19, India, Pandemic, Working Class

Even as the death toll in the U.S. from COVID-19 climbs to 63,583 and increasing numbers of Americans are forced to decide whether to forgo potentially life-saving treatment or face bankruptcy, we are bombarded daily with pro-corporate rhetoric opposed to universal health care systems. We are told that the market is the most efficient mechanism for distributing goods and services, including health care, and that social democratic policies like Medicare for All are a fiscal “fantasy” that would leave us with inferior quality care. But the COVID-19 crisis has thrown up a stubborn challenge to this pro-market logic. Despite high levels of private sector health care spending, the U.S. not only has fewer hospital beds per capita than other wealthy nations but also has huge regional disparities in how those beds are distributed.

Capitalism Is Failing Its Coronavirus Stress Test

April 25, 2020 Labor Leaders, In These Times. Organize! Corporatism, Labor Movement, Recession, Working Class

At this moment of unprecedented crisis, how can we ensure the physical safety and economic health of U.S. workers? According to a recent USA Today op-ed by four national union leaders—“Coronavirus is a stress test for capitalism, and we see encouraging signs”—the answer is partnering with “well-managed companies” who can “lead the recovery by pulling together and finding new ways to protect, pay and retain employees.” We respectfully disagree. Faced with the coronavirus, the only way to protect the lives and livelihoods of working people is through class struggle, not class snuggle. It’s true that some employers have enacted relatively pro-worker measures in response to COVID-19. But it’s surprising that an op-ed written by labor leaders fails to note the obvious reason for this benevolence: these companies have been compelled to do so by worker action, including the presence of labor unions.

General Strike Campaign Growing In The United States; Begins On May Day

April 20, 2020 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Clearing the FOG. Podcast COVID-19, General Strike, Recession, Working Class

Over the last two years, there have been record numbers of worker strikes in the United States not seen since the depression. Since the recession and COVID-19 pandemic started this winter, there have been many wildcat strikes in response to workers having their pay cut and being required to work in hazardous conditions even though they are deemed essential. Now, as the government demonstrates its unwillingness to provide basic protection for the population even as it injects billions of dollars to big industries and banks, support for a general strike is here. We speak with Kali Akuno of Cooperation Jackson about the plans being made for the first general strike on May Day, what that will look like and how the campaign will be sustained over time.

Coronavirus And The Crisis This Time

April 20, 2020 Sam Gindin, The Bullet. Strategize! COVID-19, Recession, Socialism, Working Class

Crises – not regular downturns but major crises – are characterized by the uncertainty they bring. They interrupt the normal and require yet-to-be discovered abnormal responses in order for us to move on. In the midst of these periodic calamities, we don’t know how or even whether we will stumble out of them nor what to expect if they do end. Crises are, consequently, moments of turmoil with openings for new political developments, good and bad. Because each such crisis modifies the trajectory of history, the subsequent crisis occurs in a changed context and so has its own distinct features. The crisis of the 70s, for example, involved a militant working class, a challenge to the American dollar, and a qualitative acceleration in the role of finance and of globalization.

Essential Workers Of The World Unite!

April 19, 2020 By Santiago Leyva del Río and Kaveri Medappa, ROAR Magazine. Organize! Essential worker, International Solidarity, Strike, Working Class

Ironically, the global pandemic which threatens our lives has put a spotlight on the infrastructures that sustain them. The workers who have always been saving lives, caring for the ill, cleaning and sorting waste, producing goods and providing services essential for the uninterrupted running of lives have been made “heroes.” The same capitalist actors who considered these workers easily replaceable and often dismissed their work as “unskilled” are now cynically hailing them as “warriors.” The classification of certain workers as “essential” has created conditions, which allow for disparate groups of workers to think about themselves as part of a collective. The nature of this crisis has made the infrastructural labor that sustains everyday life evident. On the one hand, this conjuncture has revealed, and will exacerbate the shared vulnerabilities of “essential workers.”

Pandemic, The Left And Workers’ Power

April 18, 2020 Juan Cruz Ferre, Left Voice. Strategize! COVID-19, Electoral Politics, Socialism, Working Class

There are over 140,000 diagnosed cases of COVID-19 in the U.S., but the actual number of infected individuals is probably already in the millions. We don’t know the real incidence of infections because the Trump administration has intentionally restricted the availability of tests in order to keep numbers artificially low. For this reason, we missed a golden opportunity to detect cases early, trace their contacts and isolate before there was community circulation of the virus. Now it’s too late. ICUs are overflowing in New York City, and we can expect similar situations in other cities as they reach their peak of infected individuals. We are on track to finding ourselves in a scenario like the one in Italy or in Spain, but with a population that’s five times larger and without universal health care. In New York State alone, there were 279 deaths in the 24 hours of Monday, March 30.

Bailout The Pension System

April 14, 2020 Ed Ott, Portside. Organize! Congress, Pensions, Working Class

It is not a secret that the United States has an inadequate and underfunded pension retirement system. Its about to get much worse! The private and public sectors’ pension plans are suffering terrible losses as a result of layoffs and investment losses. We are weeks away from a new assault on what’s left of millions of pensions across the country. There are two kinds of pension plans: (1) a defined benefit plan is when workers retire and get a set amount of money each month (such as 80 percent of their highest wage). This was the gold standard many unions won for their members in the post-WWII years. It required employers to set aside enough money to ensure workers would have adequate income when they retired. (2) Starting in the 1980s employers began to reject defined benefit plans as too expensive and moved to defined contribution plans – so-called “modern pensions.”

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